Allen: Uh, no one told me about Maine boom company

posted at 1:36 pm on June 11, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

The Obama administration continues to insist that they have full control over the Gulf oil spill, and that they are on top of all the potential solutions. Jake Tapper just punched a big hole in that PR effort. In an interview with Admiral Thad Allen, the man in charge of the federal effort to manage the crisis, Allen seems to have missed a big story about a Maine boom manufacturer who can’t get their phone calls returned:

TAPPER: I talked to a guy who runs a company in Maine that offers boom, and he has – he says – the ability to make 90,000 feet of boom a day. High quality. BP came there 2 weeks ago, looked at it, they are doing another audit today. He is very frustrated, he says he has a lot of high quality boom to go and it is taking a long time for BP to get its act together. Don’t you need this boom right now?

ALLEN: Oh we need all the boom wherever we can get it. If you give me the information off camera I’ll be glad to follow up.

Er, isn’t this the very information that the White House and Interior are supposed to know before we do? Yet three days ago, Allahpundit featured not one but two videos showing the frustation of Packgen’s management that their decision to produce high-quality boom to meet the expected demand has left them with a lot of unpurchased inventory, while the oil continues its way to Gulf coastlines. ABC also reported on Bobby Jindal’s demand for three million feet of absorbent boom material on May 24th. No one at the White House thought to Google for a manufacturer and start calling for sales?

Maybe Obama should appoint Jake Tapper to head up the effort. He seems to know more about what’s happening than the White House team.